Complex Sites

Get Your Weekly Digest

Search

COMPLEX participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COMPLEX gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive.

Watch The Roots, Erykah Badu, and More Pay Tribute to Prince at the 2016 BET Awards

Prince’s legacy will continue to be honored through tributes at concerts, award shows, and many other platforms to show the world how much he is missed in music today.

Tonight’s BET Awards keeps the tradition going with performances from some of the biggest names in music. The Roots, Erykah Badu, and Bilal are the first group of artists to perform songs from his expansive catalogue. Others set to perform are D’Angelo, Janelle Monáe, and many others.

BET’s tribute had a lot of hype surrounding it after they responded to the controversy surrounding the 2016 Billboard Awards’ performance featuring Madonna and Stevie Wonder. Their comment, which has since been deleted on Twitter, said: “Yeah, we saw that. Don’t worry. We Got You.”

Questlove, who has continued to speak on the influences of Prince months after his passing, defended Madonna’s tribute on Twitter, writing, “Naturally there will be folded arms & shade thrown because the Purple Standard is hard boots to fill & a lot of us don't wanna come 2 grips. So I know there is gonna be ALOT of 'feel a certain ways' about who you want to see do his music justice---but you gotta put that aside yall. Every Prince rendition will not be a life changing orgasmic xperience. Just to SING his work is brave enough."

POST CONTINUES BELOW

Madonna also had some words to say to Prince diehards on Instagram, "Anyone who wants to do a tribute to Prince is welcome to. Whatever your age Gender or skin Color. If you loved him and he inspired you then show it!!!! I love Prince 4 ever 💜☔️👑🙏.”

All of this just means that Prince was respected by all walks of life. You can watch the first performance above, and the other performances featuring Stevie Wonder, Tori Kelly, Jennifer Hudson, Maxwell, and Sheila E. below.